Israeli peace song symbolizes a movement

TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- "Sing, sing to peace" (60K AIFF sound or 60K WAV sound) -- part of an
Israeli peace song with a controversial past that's seen as
conveying the essence of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's "give
peace a chance" message.

It was sung in tribute at the mass communion to his memory.
And in his final public act, the normally introverted Rabin
shyly sang the same song at a massive peace rally just before
he was gunned down by an assassin.

When it was composed 25 years ago as Israel's version of the
flower generation message, army commanders objected to the
hold it gained on young Israelis. But now it symbolizes
Yitzhak Rabin's own transformation from skeptical peace agent
to out and out peace campaigner. It is a legacy likely to
grow, says the song's composer.

"To go along with the peace program and to enable people who
are opposed to it, to show them the way to accept it and
to live with it," says Israeli songwriter Yaakov Rotblitt.

The outpouring of emotion about their leader's death has left
Israelis groping for new direction. Some sense the emergence
for the first time of a mainstream Israeli peace culture,
complete with its own symbol, hero and martyr rolled into
one.

"I'm supporting the peace process and from now on I'm going
to say it because I didn't have the chance to say it when
Rabin was alive," said one young Israeli. And I'm sorry." (131K AIFF sound or 131K WAV sound)

Others draw a different conclusion: they deem national unity
the prime objective.

"It's the time of unification, for healing. It's not the
time for arguing which side is right," said a supporter of
that idea.

Doomsayers are also in evidence.

"There is some sort of identification with Rabin as a martyr
but not with the cause of peace," said one man. "When
everything settles everyone will go back and return to the
old beliefs. It will be worse. It will be worse because a
taboo has been shattered. The second shot is always much
easier than the first." (184K AIFF sound or 184K WAV sound)

But in the newly renamed Yitzhak Rabin Square -- where he met
his death and where Israelis of all political persuasions
still gather -- a new mood is apparent. In this contest over
what lessons are to be learned from the assassination, in the
square it is the message conveyed by the peace song which
holds sway ... at least for now.